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North korea tests long range missile { July 5 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0607050189jul05,1,4538045.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hedhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0607050189jul05,1,4538045.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
N. Korea tests missiles
U.S. deplores action as `provocative'
By Stephen J. Hedges, Washington Bureau. Tribune foreign correspondent Evan Osnos contributed to this report from Beijing
July 5, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Setting off a potential diplomatic and military firestorm, North Korea on Tuesday violated a seven-year missile-test ban by launching one long-range and five medium-range ballistic missiles, flights that apparently ended harmlessly in the Sea of Japan but drew a stern rebuke from the Bush administration.
As Americans celebrated Independence Day and NASA launched the space shuttle Discovery, North Korea made good on a threat to test its long-range Taepodong-2 missile, according to Stephen Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser. American experts believe the missile has a range of about 9,300 miles--enough to carry a warhead to the U.S.
In what was seen as an almost taunting display, Pyongyang also launched as many as five shorter-range missiles--known as Nodong missiles, which are based on the Soviet Scud missile design, Hadley said.
Hadley called the tests "provocative behavior" but did not say how the U.S. would respond.
"I think what we've learned is something about capabilities," he said. "The fact that they can fire Scuds and Nodongs is not a surprise. The Taepodong is a failure. That tells you something about capabilities. What we really don't have a fix on is what is the intention of all this, what is the purpose of all this.
"They have basically defied the international community," Hadley said. "It's hard to get a sense of what they think could be achieved by this."
Bush conferred with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the tests, according to White House spokesman Tony Snow.
Snow added that Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator on the North's nuclear weapons program, would head to the region Wednesday.
Previously, U.S. officials have suggested that North Korea, already isolated economically, would be the subject of even more stringent economic penalties if it carried out its test of the Taepodong-2 missile.
A Defense Department official confirmed the launch of the medium-range missiles Tuesday afternoon but said test details were still being examined.
Hadley said one missile was fired from a North Korean missile site at 1:33 p.m. Central Daylight Time, and that it landed short of Japan.
A second shorter-range missile was fired at 2:04 p.m., he said, and also landed short of Japan. The Taepodong-2 was launched at 3:01 p.m. and apparently vanished a minute into flight.
Japanese news agencies reported that the medium-range missiles landed about 300 miles from Hokkaido Island in northern Japan.
The U.S. Northern Command in Colorado said it was "immediately able to detect the launch of all the missiles, and all of them landed in the Sea of Japan."
Launches `no threat' to U.S.
The command said it was "able to determine quickly the missiles posed no threat to the United States or its territories."
North Korea's tests are sure to elicit a stern diplomatic response within the United Nations, where warnings have been issued over the prospects of a missile test. Since 2002, North Korea has taunted the West and its neighbors, primarily Japan, by escalating efforts to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, and the missiles that can carry them.
For its part, the U.S. is developing a multibillion-dollar defense system to shield against rogue missile attacks. Pentagon officials insist that the system, while far from complete, could be deployed in an emergency. The system was not deployed Tuesday, according to the U.S. Northern Command.
The U.S. also recently agreed to deploy a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile defense system in Japan. That system would be capable of shooting down shorter-range Nodong missiles, but not the higher flying Taepodong-2.
Though the test stirred some sharp rhetoric, it is unlikely to redraw the lines of support and opposition to Pyongyang.
The test puts China in an awkward position: Chinese leaders had publicly urged North Korea not to perform the test, so their advice has been rejected. But as Pyongyang's closest ally in the region, China is unlikely to support measures that would destabilize its neighbor.
"Of course China will be quite angry about this event, but China, just like before, will not take any severe or practical actions to punish North Korea," said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. "China's assistance will continue to flow into there."
Role of spy satellites
U.S. officials declined to say how they detected the North Korea launches. U.S. spy satellites are regularly positioned to observe North Korean missile activity; pictures of fueling activities at a Taepodong-2 missile site first raised concerns in the West about a month ago.
Before Tuesday's tests, many experts considered Pyongyang's threatened missile launch--despite a 1999 agreement against such tests--just the latest in a series of threats and provocations by Kim Jong Il, North Korea's mercurial leader.
North Korea is by most accounts in desperate economic straits, relying on aid from China and slowly expanding commerce with South Korea.
In the past, it has used the threat of nuclear weapons to negotiate aid and concessions from the West.
During the 1990s, the U.S. agreed to give North Korea two nuclear power-generating facilities and fuel oil in exchange for a pledge that North Korea would abandon its nuclear weapons program. North Korea violated that promise.
The Bush administration has declined to negotiate with North Korea directly, instead driving discussions through a group of six nations , including Japan, China and South Korea.
That regional leverage, administration officials believed, would lead to a more practical engagement with North Korea while diminishing Pyongyang's attempt to isolate the U.S. in its attempts to win concessions.
Those talks, however, have failed to yield a new agreement. Indeed, Tuesday's tests would suggest that the talks have brought just the opposite result.
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shedges@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
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